Toothbrushes
Yesterday, I rewired a dead desk-lamp that normally lights the workbench I use for bike stuff. The insulation of the cheap thin wires in it had cracked in the bulb's heat, shorting it out and taking out the fuse.
That sort of thing I like because it's like the world is screaming in my ear "THROW IT AWAY, THROW IT AWAY, IT"S EASIER TO BUY A NEW ONE FOR £4.99 FROM SAINSBURY'S" When I flippeded the switch and the light came on, it felt like I had flipped the finger to all that. Anyway, I feel mildly good for saving the carbon footprint for making a new one and shipping it from China and not making Sainsbury's slightly richer.
Later on, in Boot's, I was shopping for a toothbrush, amongst other things. I was about to unthinkingly grab whatever brand was 2 for 1 when I noticed the "Boot's Basics" ones that are 28p for 2.
They look weirdly incongruous, surrounded by ranks of all the other brands. All the ones round them, are brightly coloured and have bizarrely shaped heads, built in ultrasonic thimajbobs, and all other kinds of wonders that promise superior cleaning. Features some demented types with rimless glasses and a Masters in Marketing dreamt up in about a thousand brainstorming meetings, where they used thick marker pens to write single words in large letters on a flipchart about what Ms Average wants when she buys a toothbrush. Features that have more to to with getting the product sold than cleaning teeth, that they think will give you a small burst of positive emotions when you pick the item up and are essentially what happens when advertising and the product merge into one.
There amongst all that were the Boot's Basics. They are white and are 1/20 the cost of the others. My internal dialogue went as thus:
"Get the usual ones, they're on two for one."
"But those ones are cheap."
"Which means there's something wrong with them, you fool. How can something without 3D-Angled Bristles™® and a Multi-Flexi-Head™® possibly call itself a toothbrush?"
"Excuse, me! Bristles and a handle! What essential toothbrush features do these lack?"
"Look, it's only three pounds extra to get the proper ones."
"And exactly what benefit will I see from that expenditure?"
"I don't know, but you're just being weird again because nobody else buys the 28p ones."
< sighs >... "If I promise to uses these these for cleaning oil from bike cassettes, if they're unsatisfactory, will you shut up?"
"I suppose. But I bet you'll be back to get one of the others."
"Yeah... whatever. Fine."
< grabs Basic toothbrushes and stalks to the checkout >
Though, I'm now slightly suspicious that the 28p ones are carefully designed and packaked by cunning marketeers want to appeal to smug people who believe they can see through the transparent blandishments of marketing. Perhaps marketeers are like the devil - their greatest trick is to make you think they're not there. But they always are.
This is getting seriously paranoid. Sod it, I need coffee.
That sort of thing I like because it's like the world is screaming in my ear "THROW IT AWAY, THROW IT AWAY, IT"S EASIER TO BUY A NEW ONE FOR £4.99 FROM SAINSBURY'S" When I flippeded the switch and the light came on, it felt like I had flipped the finger to all that. Anyway, I feel mildly good for saving the carbon footprint for making a new one and shipping it from China and not making Sainsbury's slightly richer.
Later on, in Boot's, I was shopping for a toothbrush, amongst other things. I was about to unthinkingly grab whatever brand was 2 for 1 when I noticed the "Boot's Basics" ones that are 28p for 2.
They look weirdly incongruous, surrounded by ranks of all the other brands. All the ones round them, are brightly coloured and have bizarrely shaped heads, built in ultrasonic thimajbobs, and all other kinds of wonders that promise superior cleaning. Features some demented types with rimless glasses and a Masters in Marketing dreamt up in about a thousand brainstorming meetings, where they used thick marker pens to write single words in large letters on a flipchart about what Ms Average wants when she buys a toothbrush. Features that have more to to with getting the product sold than cleaning teeth, that they think will give you a small burst of positive emotions when you pick the item up and are essentially what happens when advertising and the product merge into one.
There amongst all that were the Boot's Basics. They are white and are 1/20 the cost of the others. My internal dialogue went as thus:
"Get the usual ones, they're on two for one."
"But those ones are cheap."
"Which means there's something wrong with them, you fool. How can something without 3D-Angled Bristles™® and a Multi-Flexi-Head™® possibly call itself a toothbrush?"
"Excuse, me! Bristles and a handle! What essential toothbrush features do these lack?"
"Look, it's only three pounds extra to get the proper ones."
"And exactly what benefit will I see from that expenditure?"
"I don't know, but you're just being weird again because nobody else buys the 28p ones."
< sighs >... "If I promise to uses these these for cleaning oil from bike cassettes, if they're unsatisfactory, will you shut up?"
"I suppose. But I bet you'll be back to get one of the others."
"Yeah... whatever. Fine."
< grabs Basic toothbrushes and stalks to the checkout >
Though, I'm now slightly suspicious that the 28p ones are carefully designed and packaked by cunning marketeers want to appeal to smug people who believe they can see through the transparent blandishments of marketing. Perhaps marketeers are like the devil - their greatest trick is to make you think they're not there. But they always are.
This is getting seriously paranoid. Sod it, I need coffee.